Migrations in Asia: Bangladesh and the former USSR countries

According to the World Bank, by 2050, there will be almost 20 million climate refugees and victims of environmental disasters in Bangladesh. Climate-driven migration creates enormous challenges for the country’s already overcrowded cities, such as Dhaka. Therefore, the port and industrial centre Mongla becomes an alternative for people displaced by the climate. The city authorities focused, among others, on building climate-resilient infrastructure in the face of rising sea levels and increasingly stronger cyclones. In the city, migrants can find jobs, schools, affordable housing and health care.

Afghans forced to emigrate from Pakistan are staying in a camp on a desert plain among the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, near the Torkham border crossing. It is another stop in the continuing migration of the Afghan people – more than 40 years of war, violence and poverty in their homeland have created one of the most displaced populations in the world. Approx. 6 million Afghans are refugees outside the country; war, earthquakes, drought, or depleting resources have displaced another 3.5 million people.

At the end of 2023, Russian authorities detained thousands of people suspected of having irregular migrant status. According to some media, some of the migrants were conscripted into the army to fight in the war in Ukraine. In Russia, there are millions of migrants from neighbouring Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, usually looking for work there.